The West is on the precipice of succumbing to an authoritarian take over. From Donald Trump winning the United States Presidential election, to the far-right closer to clinching power in France, from the Reform Party’s astonishing rise to prominence in the UK where their popularity has grown tremendously since being founded, to Pierre Poilievre’s dominant lead in the polls over Justin Trudeau in next year’s Canadian Election.
Donald Trump’s 2024 Win
Trump’s electoral success can be attributed in part to the support of technofascists who have used their influence and resources to advance their fiscal interests. These interests include deregulation of industries and lowering tax rates for corporations and the wealthy.
Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, has played a pivotal role in aligning Big Tech with Trump’s (and by extension the Republican party’s) agenda. Thiel famously hired JD Vance, now the U.S. Vice President, at his investment firm and donated $15 million to Vance’s Ohio Senate campaign in 2022. Similarly, Elon Musk has been a significant and very vocal ally of Trump, using his vast platform to amplify Trump’s message. Musk reactivated Trump’s Twitter account – alongside many well known racist and fascists – and manipulated the platform’s algorithms to promote far-right talking points and support Trump’s presidential campaign. Musk’s presence at Trump’s campaign events has been so frequent that even Trump has ‘joked’ about Musk overstaying his welcome.
Elon Musk’s influence extends beyond social media. He intervened to undermine a Senate bill aimed at raising the U.S. government’s debt ceiling, nearly causing a government shutdown. Musk has been so aggressive deploying his influence and wealth that the left and even resentful components of the MAGA movement have coined the term “President Musk” – in reference to how Trump seems to merely be a figurehead with respect to Musk, and also to wound Trump’s ego to goad him into ousting Musk from his circle.
Thiel and Musk are not alone. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, was previously critical of Trump and the alt-right agenda but has now also attended Trump events and adjusted his platform’s policies to exclude anti-LGBT sentiments from hate speech regulations. This re-alignment is important in understanding how the tech sector’s most powerful figures have become complicit in advancing far-right agendas.
Global Fascism
At this point, it may seem like the United States is an anomaly with regards to the far right and the role of the tech sector in this – that’s not the case. Fascist movements are gaining popularity all over Europe and even in Asia. For example, Elon Musk recently tossed around the idea of donating £80m to the far right Reform party in the UK. He has also actively advocated for the AfD in Germany. Le Pen has seen an increase in popularity in France and the far right Meloni cabinet in Italy won their national election in 2022. China has been promoting far right cultural talking points, likely in an effort to rally their future population to the CCP once their population dip causes financial strain on their country. As inequality drives towards a breaking point, liberal economics dies.
The cause
It is common for liberals to assume that the issue here is with some ‘bad eggs’, and that if their influence were just removed then this increased impact of far-right culture would just disappear. Unfortunately, this is not the case, for it is the system of capital itself and the power it buys in a capitalist economy that promotes the greediest, most self-serving individuals to rise to the apex of power and influence and use it to serve their own purposes: if it weren’t Musk, it would be someone else.
The general public is rightfully frustrated with liberal politicians too. Liberal politicians are in-bed with capital just like right wing parties and thus won’t challenge capital meaningfully either, despite the decline of the common person’s material conditions. This frustration leads to votes for radical populists out of both desperation and outrage at the system. As a hopeful addendum, this doesn’t just seem to be right-wing populists, as the left-wing independent United States senator Bernie Sanders is immensely popular even with republican voters.
Conclusion
Arguably, the pressing question is why technocrats like Musk, Thiel, and others continue to amass wealth and power when they already possess vast resources. Greed and the lust for power seems to be boundless. For these individuals, wealth is not merely a means to an end but an end in itself, and power becomes an addiction that fuels their ambitions.
Fortunately, there are solutions. The working class vastly outnumbers the ultra-wealthy class and authoritarian politicians, making collective action through protests and trade unions a powerful tool for securing economic justice and protecting those targeted by reactionary forces. The socialisation of key industries—particularly the tech sector, including the gaming industry, which is in dire need of reform— is a key demand in the interests of the vast majority. A significantly higher wealth tax to fund social programs and revive the crumbling welfare state, would be instrumental in improving the lives of ordinary people.
Thank you for raising this important issue. AI is yet another way for capital to appropriate and alienate forms of labour, in this case creative labour of various kinds.
AI raises many other issues, of course. Changes to labour practice, putting the balance in favour of capital over labour, surveillance, pre-crime, misinformation, centralisation of control in huge mega-corporations (which now have taken over the US government overtly, when before they only did so covertly), and very clear bias against anyone who is not white, male, young, and not disabled.
Although (obviously) Marx could not foresee AI, he did write extensively about “Modern Machinery”. There is a healthy subgroup of Marxists who make science and technology a particular object of study, or, you could as well say, a healthy strand of Marxism in science and technology studies. Marx, of course, dedicated a very long, immensely well-researched chapter of Capital to Machinery and Large-scale Industry.
However, outside of these groups, and outside of academic study, technology is not considered as seriously as it should be by Marxists and socialists. This neglect allows Capital, sometimes disguised as “libertarianism”, to dominate the development and implementation of technology. The UK government’s “pro-growth” AI policies, which explicitly favour “innovation” over all other considerations (witness the recent change from the AI Safety Institute to become the AI Security Institute, as though “security” is the only concern), are only one manifestation of this.
Dave Kellaway’s incisive critique of PFIs is well timed. He conclusively shows that these schemes provide a bad deal for the schools and the taxpayer alike and benefit the shareholders of private companies. NHS hospitals, which are in serious disrepair and thereby hamper the safe delivery of patient services, cry our for investment in their infrastructure. However, once again the Labour government has expressed an interest in going down the discredited PFI route to address this need. Already hospital trusts are saddled with debts of £2 billion annually, which they are compelled to pay from their budgets before making allocations to their medical departments. In Bristol, for example, Southmead Hospital will paying off a PFI deal of £430 million to the tune of £2.3 billion (5x) the original cost until 2045. PFI contracts are lucrative to the companies at the expense of the schools and hospitals built with PFI money. Schools and hospitals requiring maintenance and repairs have no option but to use PFI contractors at exorbitant rates to change locks, replace broken windows and do additional decorating. In essence, unlike the owner of a house paying a mortgage, they do not have the freedom of deciding who will provide services for them. Instead of going down the route of costly and restrictive PFI deals, the government should use public money to invest in the infrastructure of schools and hospitals,